TROMPE-L’OEIL

by Suzanne Morris

Whenever I look at the

portrait of him 50 years ago

peering out from beneath

the smart billed cap

of his U.S. Army

dress uniform,

his eyes seem fixed on

grim reality:

he was drafted just before

his 25th birthday

during a war that he

already suspected

we should not be fighting,

and the casualties were

mounting at an alarming rate.

What a relief when he was made

a levee clerk in the Medical Corps,

posted at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Yet... sending others into action

while remaining safely behind

left its own set of scars.

Long after the war was over,

he suffered nightmares

of being under fire in Viet Nam.

I would lay beside him in the dark,

transfixed as he described

in terrifying detail

the first-hand experience of

a combat veteran.

This year I watched the

Memorial Day Concert on PBS,

with patriotic music and

stories of valor—

a resounding tribute to all who had died

defending American ideals

over the last 250 years.

By the time the show closed

with a haunting rendition of Taps

I was clutching his picture

against my heart,

knowing how grim

his face would be

had he lived long enough to see

the abdication of those ideals

by a President afflicted with

gilded bone spurs,

and thinking ahead to the

taxpayer-financed military parade

scheduled in Washington, D.C.

on June 14th,

a faux tribute to the U.S. Army that is

sure to make Trump’s pal Vladimir

red-faced with envy.

Anyone who dares to crash Trump’s

45-million-dollar birthday party

will be met with great force

as in the case of the protests

against his immigration raids in L.A.,

drafting U.S. troops

to engage in a war

they should not be fighting.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet. Her poems have appeared in online journals including The New Verse News and Texas Poetry Assignment, and anthologies including The Senior Class - 100 Poets on Aging (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024). A native Houstonian, she has resided in Cherokee County, Texas, since 2008. 

DANCING AT THE CRIPPLED CHILDREN'S BALL

at Sam Houston Coliseum in the 1950's and 1960's

by Suzanne Morris

The Southwest Citizen (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 43, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 2, 1950

The lawyer [Aaron Siri] helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death. —The New York Times, December 15, 2024

I am staring at the bald pate of

Mr. Siri as he imparts his wisdom

to the U.S. Congress

when my years of dancing at the

annual Crippled Children’s Ball

come back to mind with a

sting of irony that

I didn’t see back then, though

the children being honored surely did

when crossing the floor

with hitching steps in

steel braces and leather stocks

in the somersaulting spotlights,

names broadcast

from high above

a Shriner in bejeweled fez

dispensing handshakes as

the audience cheered.

One by one, the survivors came,

withered limbs cocooned in

full-length gowns or creased dress pants

as each of us waited in the wings

in stage make-up

sequined bodice and revealing tu-tu:

Dancers dancing at the

Crippled Children’s Ball.

Metal rotating on hinges

propelled brave steps

into the post-polio world

of watching others demonstrate

dainty pirouettes and

fouettés en pointe

then bid farewell with

curtsies and pixie smiles

from the arena stage floor.

Dancers dancing at the

Crippled Children’s Ball.

The brief insult of a

needle prick

saved us from all

they had endured

and later still,

even less an event:

one sugar cube

drenched in tu-tu pink.

Dancers dancing at the

Crippled Children’s Ball.

Suzanne Morris resides in Cherokee County, Texas, where she writes poetry, reads a lot, and tries, with little success, to make sense of the news. 

SIMPLY, CATHERINE

by Suzanne Morris

...is how I chose,

in the end,

to remember her name

on the prayer list

to be read aloud

in Sunday worship.

Not Catherine,

Princess of Wales

or Kate, as she is

familiarly known,

but rather, simply, Catherine.

Not because I

wanted to avoid

raising the ire of anyone

who disapproves of

the British monarchy’s

continued existence, or

starting a dialogue

in hushed tones

about how shabbily the Royals

had treated poor Meghan.

Not to put aside the question of

whether or not

anyone outside

the royal family

and the healthcare professionals

ministering to her

has a right to know

the precise location of

the 42-year-old woman’s

disease

or the degree of

its advance.

No, in the end, I wrote down

simply, Catherine

because I believe

the frail-looking woman,

wife, and mother of three,

sitting alone on a bench

in a striped sweater

that appeared a little

too large on her frame

marshaling all her energy to

assuage the world’s

insatiable desire for

information

will always be,

in the sight of God,

simply, Catherine.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet.  Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, and in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, and Stone Poetry Quarterly.  She resides in Cherokee County, Texas.

BÉLIZAIRE

by Suzanne Morris

after “Bélizaire and the Frey Children”  attributed to French portraitist Jacques Amans, 1837, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023

He stands tall, one shoulder

resting against a wide-girthed tree

on the pleasant green expanse

of a Louisiana plantation.

His arms are folded

contemplatively

across the front of his

tailored coat.

His face is solemn,

cheeks highly colored,

gaze fixed on some

point in the distance

as if he’s assessing

his place above

the three young,

open-faced siblings

in dainty frocks

standing below:

What might have led to an

enslaved youngster’s appearance

in a portrait of his

owner’s fair children?

And if this be vouchsafed by

sweet Heaven’s intent, then

might these

privileged youths

who boast to him of their

McGuffey Readers and are

well-versed in Bible stories

one day take up 

their writing pens and

set down the truth of

his people’s history?

Some sixty years hence,

the yoke of American

slavery broken,

Bélizaire’s noble figure

will be cunningly painted over

leaving his ghost to hover

between the artist’s vision

and the sunny sky, added later,

to obscure him.

The antebellum portrait of

three comely white children

will be forgotten

in the dark reaches

of attic and basement

until the dawn of the

21st century, when

Bélizaire’s figure

is finally restored

and the work receives

due veneration

the full franchise of 

his people bought with

calloused feet and heroes’ blood.

Yet now, less than

two decades passed,

Bélizaire looks down

contemplatively

from high up on a

museum wall

as a generation

come lately

forswearing the truth 

painstakingly written

again takes up the brush to

paint over him.   

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works.  Her poems have appeared inThe New Verse News and The Texas Poetry Assignment, as well as other online poetry journals, and anthologies.  A native of Houston, she now makes her home in Cherokee County, Texas.

THE BALLET DANCERS OF UKRAINE

by Suzanne Morris

      –after Alexei Ratmansky’s staging of “Giselle,”

        a romantic ballet in two acts

They fled from

all over Ukraine

screaming sirens the

new dance master

from towering wings

of concert halls

to air raid shelters’

indifferent walls

emerging, resolute

En avant! 

for the performance of

their lifetimes:

operatic defense of a

a venerated Art now

threatened with extinction.

Some took their positions

à la barre in the Hague,

others journeyed farther

into the arms of

Ratmansky’s Giselle

at Washington’s Kennedy Center:

Ghostly figures from the

18th century

swathed in clouds of

transparent tulle

float in an ethereal

pas de bourrée

returning to a place that

they once knew, but

now is no more

than an apparition

like the beautiful

peasant girl

beloved of one forbidden

to woo her 

pursued by another

jealous to own her

lost in a Potemkin village

where pantomime

and pirouettes fuse

in Act One’s show-stopping

conclusion:

Giselle’s tragic death

from heartbreak.

When the curtain ascends

the maid is mourned

flowers laid at her grave,

her spirit torn between

heaven and hell’s

treacherous pas de deux

...and yet au fil du temps...

the story’s hopeful end,

Ratmansky’s wish come true

the audience releasing

a long-held breath then

rising to their feet, Bravo!m

What will become of the

soul of Ukraine

when Russia’s

dance to the death concludes

and the grinding thud of

invaders’ boots

is but a ghostly echo?

Will her steps be mired

evermore 

in a Wilis encore of

revenge?

Or, will her soul

like the peasant girl’s

leave hate in the grave,

and forgive?

Au fil du temps… 

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and a poet.  Her poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Pine Cone Review, Emblazoned Soul Review, and other journals and anthologies.

A CHURCH ON UKRAINE’S EASTERN FRONT

by Suzanne Morris

Fighters from Ukraine’s Karpatska Sich Battalion in a church on Dec. 25 that was destroyed by shelling and reportedly looted by Russian forces during their occupation, in the Lyman district in the Donetsk region. Credit: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

The Church is torn from

limb to limb

daylight flooding through

gaping holes in hallowed walls

Russian spies posing as

monks and priests and nuns 

and at least one Ukrainian abbot 

convicted of espionage.

So I wonder about

the soldier in combat gear

entering through

an arched door

wrested from its hinges,

glass blown out

his heavy boots crunching

on the pulverized pieces

littering a floor

thickly layered with shell dust

below a magisterial portrait of

Jesus praying in the

Garden of Gethsemane,

looking heavenward

as if to beseech God for

an explanation for this

violent schism between two branches

that grew from the same root,

for the shell holes that

pock the background of the

star-speckled sky

above his haloed head

and the rock he kneels against

to pray.

Jewel-toned paraments

embroidered in gold

are strewn about the floor

and flung against

the high upholstered back of a

filigreed chair

while the Virgin Mary

enfolded in deep blue and rose

ponders in her heart

from high above:

For this, my son died on the cross?

Nearby, the wooden altar

with elaborate detail

is deeply scarred, panels missing

its top piece knocked awry

and all around, sections of

towering, frescoed walls blown out,

the portraits adorning them ripped,

iconography broken and dangling.

The soldier’s head is bowed

as though he has escaped

for a few moments of prayer

within this tattered sanctuary.

Or, perhaps he has come to

search for evidence of treason:

lists of people to be killed,

wads of illicit cash,

pamphlets of Russian propaganda

to be traced

so that justice

can be served.

And all the while the

raging war

hurtles into its second year... 

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and a poet. Her poems have appeared in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Pinecone Review, and Emblazoned Soul Review.